Hardware Store Locks are CRAP! | Mr. Locksmith Blog

Most if not all the locks and safes sold in the Big Box Hardware stores are extremely easy to open and many have security flaws. If you are ok with low cost, low security and low quality then just stop ready now and head to your Local Hardware store to buy your locks.

I do a lot of locksmith and security training all over the world. So I travel quite a bit and my specialty is opening things. And so as a company, we have a lot of fun, we open things that’s what we do. We love when you’re locked out of your house. It’s not a heartbreak re-key, but those are Valentine’s Day, Christmas, we do a lot of heartbreak rekeys, you know, who changed my locks. We love doing it, no problem. The most common night call is locked out of the bedroom. Yeah. And if you have kids you know why. People go, “Hey, why did you get locked out of a bedroom?” You know, they don’t have kids.

One of the most common is locked out of a bathroom. “How to Open Your Bathroom Lock” was my first video to be on Youtube. My Mr. Locksmith YouTube Channel is now approaching 10,000 hours watched per month. I just did a quick little video last year and we hit in four days, we hit a million views, it went viral. And it was just playing around, what I’m going to do here right now. So one thing I pick on is, I tend to pick on what you buy over the counter at the home hardware stores, even the Costco’s. I opened up the safe in 1.58-seconds

For the CTV News Channel we went down to the big box store, bought the safe, unpacked it and opened it on TV and everything and even he was shocked how easy and quick it was. Now what we usually do is we give lots of warning to the manufacturers and we give them four to six weeks or longer to respond or to fix and sometimes we never go public, sometimes we do. Usually, I go public the second they go, “We’re gonna sue you.” So the first thing I do is I have Locksmith friends in the US or elsewhere in the World, I say, “This is what I did can you replicate it.” The other Locksmiths replicates it and then we put it on Youtube. And then, they have to decide what they’re gonna do. I haven’t been sued yet, touch wood. That day will come, but as long as we can replicate what we do, there shouldn’t be a problem. Anything in Home Depot can be beaten in seconds, you know. Now, I’m gonna cheat a little bit today, I’m gonna show you some stuff that we can’t beat. And again, this is what I specialize in, I teach law enforcement, military around the world how to open things without blowing up doors and battering ram things down. Now there’s, I’m gonna keep it real simple, there’s what we call covert, which is like the 007, James Bond stuff and then there’s Overt, where we actually, covert is when we get in and you don’t even know we opened it, got in and left, there’s absolutely no sign of entry, you don’t know what’s happened. Very, very few burglars can do covert or even overt. So here’s a very popular, now I love Slate or Schlage, they’re commercial grade stuff is absolutely fantastic. I love it, but, now this will be

Any locks sold now in Big Box Hardware store locks can be opened in seconds. Now, I’m gonna cheat a little bit today, I am going to show you some stuff that we cannot beat. And again, this is what I specialize in, I teach law enforcement, military around the world how to open things without blowing up doors and battering ram things down. Now there’s, I’m gonna keep it real simple, there’s what we call Covert, which is like the 007, James Bond stuff and then there is Overt, where we actually, Covert is when we get in and you don’t even know we opened it, got in and left, there’s absolutely no sign of entry, you don’t know what’s happened. Very, very few burglars can do Covert or even Overt.

So here’s a very popular, now I love Schlage locks, they’re commercial grade stuff is absolutely fantastic. I love it, but, now this will be Overt. And again, what I did, I pre-did, I got that little hole, I can do a micro, drill a hole, this is kind of a big one here, but basically this is very common, it’s 200-bucks, it’s in Home Depot. All I need to do is take anything I want, it’s locked, I don’t know the number. I’ve already pre-drilled, so this is Overt, so this is kind of cheating. So we just come along, put a little tiny hole, we’re in. A lot of the locks can be picked, so most of your most common locks in the lower mainland are Weiser and Schlage. My top of the line lock, I absolutely love the Abloy. It’s a high-security lock, this is called the Abloy Protec2. Now I’m a dealer, so you know, of course, I’m prejudiced a little bit, but I also teach how to open stuff. There are no known defeats for this lock that’s why I love it. You can’t 3-D print this key. The lock cannot be picked. Not like hardware store locks. Now they say pick resistant, we can’t say pick proof and is UL approved. The thing is I absolutely hate it when I see all these smart locks and they say pick proof. And that’s like waving a red flag in front of me. And four guys at some, anything they call smart is actually dumb. Smart locks, smart padlocks, smart anything, we defeat them in seconds and we do it mostly on purpose because they’re saying, “We’re picking proof.” And then we took the pick proof padlock and we opened it in seconds just with a tin can. Now this one can’t be picked, I can’t even teach anybody how to pick it. We have to destroy the lock and this one is I love it, it’s hardened just like a safe on the banks. The inner has a hardened plate, so even to drill this, I can’t drill this easily, it’s really hard. So this is an Abloy Protec2, it’s 100-percent Abloy, I can’t pick it. It’s terrible to drill. We actually more or less grind it and slice it. And also I sort of debunk things, when they say we defeated this, I look at what they did and I say that’s fake. You know, a lot of times I get in on online, I’ll just go, “Fake video,” you know, you didn’t do it right, then they’ll get upset. But people say I’m fake too when I did what I showed you there, they’ll say, “Oh, that’s fake,” you know. And then we’ll say, “Okay, let’s go buy one at Home Depot.” I get the company reps come out here, they come up with their locks, let’s see you pick this. I said, “No, we’re gonna go to Home Depot and buy that hardware store locks.” And they go, “Oh, no.” These are pick resistant, drill resistant locks, I can’t get through them, I can’t teach them, how you even go through them. And we can’t even cheat, take pictures or a get a hold of a key and then 3-D it. Terry from Mr. LockSmith, get your free key starting May 1st at our store.

My top of the line lock, I absolutely love the Abloy. It’s a high-security lock, this is called the Abloy Protec 2. Now I’m a dealer, so you know, of course, I’m prejudiced a little bit, but I also teach how to open stuff. There are no known defeats for this lock that’s why I love it. You can’t 3-D print this key. The lock cannot be picked. Now they say pick resistant, we can’t say pick proof and is UL approved. The thing is I absolutely hate it when I see all these smart locks and they say pick proof. And that’s like waving a red flag in front of me. And four guys at some, anything they call smart is actually dumb. Smart locks, smart padlocks, smart anything, we defeat them in seconds and we do it mostly on purpose because hardware store locks they’re saying, “We’re picking proof.” And then we took the pick proof padlock and we opened it in seconds just with a tin can. Now this one can’t be picked, I can’t even teach anybody how to pick it. We have to destroy the lock and this one is I love it, it’s hardened just like a safe on the banks. The inner has a hardened plate, so even to drill this, I can’t drill this easily, it’s really hard. So this is an Abloy Protec2, it’s 100-percent Abloy, I can’t pick it. It’s terrible to drill. We actually more or less grind it and slice it. And also I sort of debunk things, when they say we defeated this, I look at what they did and I say that’s fake. You know, a lot of times I get in on online, I’ll just go, “Fake video,” you know, you didn’t do it right, then they’ll get upset. But people say I’m fake too when I did what I showed you there, they’ll say, “Oh, that’s fake,” you know. And then we’ll say, “Okay, let’s go buy one of the hardware store locks.” I get the company reps come out here, they come up with their locks, let’s see you pick this. I said, “No, we’re gonna go to Home Depot and buy that.” And they go, “Oh, no.” Hardware store locks are pick resistant, drill resistant locks, I can’t get through them, I can’t teach them, how you even go through them. And we can’t even cheat, take pictures or a get a hold of a key and then 3-D it. Terry Whin-Yates from Mr. LockSmith, get your free key starting May 1st at our

For On-line and Hands-on Locksmith Training Dates and Cities near you by Terry Whin-Yates for Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced Locksmithing as well as my Covert Methods of Entry, Non-destructive Methods of Entry and to purchase the Famous “Dumb Key Force Tool” that opens Smart Key locks in seconds go to Mr. Locksmith Training